9/9/2022
First, I want to say sorry for the drop in coverage and being so late this week but at Eli Sports our 1st coverage is High School sports and we are off and running. So far this week we have put up 12 live broadcasts with 5 more tonight and 2 more tomorrow. But I will be getting to the track on closing weekend and trying to catch up with all the news heading into the final 3 days. With that I did go through last week and want to highlight some of the accomplishments and notes from last week. Let’s get to it!
Friday Night
Sharing the Wins
The first thing that jumped out at me was I think this is the 1st day that a different jockey won each race, no one had multiple wins. Again, not sure but I think it is the 1st time this season that has occurred. The winners in order were Kevin Orozco, Connie Doll, Eddie Martinez, Alex Anaya, Jose Zunino, Alex Cruz and Juan Gutierrez.
For the week it was also the most number of different riders winning a race with 11 different jockeys finding the winner’s circle.
Historic Win
In the 2nd race, Connie Doll was the winning rider on Midnight Luter who went off as the 8-5 betting favorite and Doll with Luter took a 2 length lead at the top of the stretch and held that advantage for the win. Lucky K Racing were the owners of Midnight Luter and Rosie Simkins trained.
This was a historic win as Doll broke her own state record after winning last year at age 62. This year at 63 she is the oldest jockey ever to win a race in Washington state. We tried to find out how she fared nationwide and all we could find was Diane King in 2013 won a race at Thistledowns at the age of 67. The story was in the Paulick report and so we reached to the Paulick folks and tghey said they aren’t sure how Doll’s win would rank as there is no clearing house of stats such as that in horse racing. It is safe to say though that Doll’s win at 63 is an extremely rare accomplishment.
The other interesting stat with Doll’s accomplishment’s is that she never fooled the bettors. Last Friday Midnight Luter was the betting favorite at 8-5. Her win in 2021 on Discreet Demons for trainer Roddina Barrett was the 5-2 betting choice. She didn’t have a win in 2020 but in 2019 she won 3 times at Sun Downs and was 3-1, 7-2 and 4-5. And in 2018 she had 5 wins at 1-1, 4-5, 3-2, 3-1 and 4-1. The last time Doll had a winner that paid $10.00 or more was April 28, 2018. So if you see money being bet on Doll when she rides best you have her included seems like the public knows when she is ready for a win.
Other 1st time Winners
Trainer Mary Pirone got her 1st training win of the season when Stephen James won the 5th race with Jose Zunino. This was also owner Mike Dale’s 1st win of the year. Pirone is now 1-0-1 from 6 starts for 2022 at Emerald Downs. Owner Michael Loynes also got his 1st win of the season when Capital Expense won the 4th race with Alex Anaya on board for trainer Robbie Baze. The $1 daily double of matching the 2 1st time owner winners paid a nice $51.
Pirone’s Stephen James also was the 1st horse to win the 1-mile and 70 yards distance race ever in Emerald Downs history. It was the 1st time the race distance has ever been offered and set the 1st record of a time in 1:42.34. However, it was short lived as Complicate won the feature on Sunday with a new best time of 1:39.22. But no one can take away the 1st ever win for Stephen James and his connections.
Feature Race
The feature race was taken by 7-1 Y Vee R with a perfectly timed ride from leading jockey Alex Cruz. Cruz sat just off the early front speed of longshot Trinni Valentine, got first run and then held off both the 2nd and 1st favorites to win a 3-way photo by a neck. 5-2 shot Igottabooboo with Juan Gutierrez who was a nose better than top choice Faithful Son with Leslie Mawing for 2nd.
Y Vee R ran the 6 furlongs in 1:10.78 and is owned by Victoria and Robert Gilker and Ernie Chu and trained by Robert Gilker. Y Vee R paid $16 on the $2 win and $28.60 on the $2 combo ticket.
Saturday Racing
Feature Race
A field of 7 went 6 1/2 furlongs and favorite Brady Boy with Kevin Radke up got the perfect trip sitting off the front speed of A View From Above with Kevin Orozco then surged to the front at the top of the stretch and pulled away for an easy 3 length win. Brady Boy was the betting favorite at 7-5 and returned $4.80 on the $2 win.
Brady Boy is owned by Todd and Shawn Hansen and trained by Blaine Wright. Brady Boy stopped the clock in a time of 1:15.78 and is a Washington bred by Twirling Candy out of Thunderina by Curlin and was bred by the owners.
Midnight Mojo, last year’s Gottstein winner again ran a solid race but settled for 2nd and still looking for his 1st win since the Gottstein. Eddie Martinez was aboard and helped the exotics at 13-1. A View from Above held 3rd and Tax Code with Alex Cruz completed the superfecta.
Jockeys
Leading rider Alex Cruz won 2 on Saturday as did Jake Samuels. Samuels may have just taken over the shortest $2 win pay-out for the season when he won on 1-9 shot Enchanting Way and the filly returned a whopping $2.20 for you $2 win bet. The $2 combo or a total bet of $6 would have earned you a return of $6.40 or a profit of 40-cents.
Kevin Radke who was mounts on Friday won the feature, Juan Gutierrez also got a win in the 1st while Clayan Millwood continues to pick up wins and usually on longshots and did it again here with Rousing Rubble at 13-1. And Kevin Orozco remains hot here late in the season and won the finale.
Emerald Racing Club
The Emerald Racing Club that sports hundreds of part-owners and is a program run by Emerald Downs Media Director Vince Bruun to show or allow people what it’s like to be an owner picked up their 2nd win of the season on Saturday. Onefineday with Juan Gutierrez led start to finish in the 1st and crushed the field by 6 lengths.
The club has had 10 starters this season and sports a 2-2-1 record with total earnings of $15,860. Their 1st win this year was on July 3rd with Tengo Sed and Gutierrez riding. The ERC has been operating since 2014 and got their 1st win ever on July 13, 2014 when Dancing Yodeler won at 9-2 with Leslie Mawing up. The original trainer for the ERC was Larry Ross. It then shifted to Sharon Ross after Larry retired and now it’s Jeff Metz who took-over when Sharon retired last year.
Overall the Emerald Racing Club in 8 years has started 79 races had 18 winners, 14 2nds and 8 3rds earning a grand total of $151,655. That’s a 23% win rate and 51% top 3 finish percent. The owners all put in $500 at the beginning of the year and depending on how they do and after the trainer, vet, jockey’s groom and fees are all paid they can get back as much as the $500 they invested. If there is money left over after that all of it is donated to horses rescue non-profits.
Sunday Racing
Feature Race
Alex Cruz rode a perfect race in the Sunday feature with Complicate. Cruz sat in 4th early in in the one Mile and 70, only the 2nd time this distance had been run after the 1st one on Friday night. El Alto Hombre set the early fractions but Cruz waited and then engaged Five Star General at the top of the stretch and those two would draw off and Complicate eased away for the 3/4 length win. Five Star General who ran 3rd in the Longacres Mile had to settle for a clear 2nd at 4-1 with Leslie Mawing while the Longacres Mile winner Slew’s Tiz Whiz closed late for 3rd with regular rider Jose Zunino but could not challenge the top 2 on this day.Top Executive would finish 4th.
Complicate at 10-1 would heartily reward his backers with a $22.80 win return. Missed the Boat Stable owns Complicate and Kenneth Person trains. Complicate earned $17,050 for Allowance win. The $1 exacta to 4-1 Five Star General paid a good $85.20, the 50-cent trifecta with 1-1 Slew’s Tiz Whiz returned $92.
Alex’s Dominate
If you just bet Alex to win you would have cashed 5 races with Alex Cruz winning 2 and Alex Anaya having a break-out day with a triple. The 5 winners averaged nearly 6-1 so wasn’t just a bunch of favorites. In fact if you would have simply bet $2 win on every horse ridden by an “Alex” it would have cost you $28 and you would have cashed $68.40 or a profit of $40.40. Better yet, by boxing the Alex’s in the $1 daily doubles your total cost would have been $18 and you would have hit 3 of the 8 with a return of $187.40 a profit of almost $170.
The Betting Window
There were several chances to cash decent to huge tickets last week. The big pays included the Sunday 50-cent pick 5 that paid $19,812.90. And it wasn’t that tough to get to be honest with a little deep investment. The 1st leg was a 9-2 shot, N P Forty with Kevin Orozco and was the 3rd choice in a 5 horse field. The 2nd leg was the 7-5 fav in a 4-horse field when Candy Zip won with Juan Gutierrez aboard. The 3rd leg was a 7-2 shot and the 3rd betting choice in a field of 7. Bronze Warrior and Kevin Radke were the winners. The 4th leg was the challenge but it was won by the leading jockey Alex Cruz as Complicate took the feature race at 10-1 in a field of 6. And the other Alex, Alex Anaya took the finale on Mancuso at the Mic at 5-1 in a field of 6. This is strange that more didn’t have it as the last pick 4 that included the 10-1 and 5-1 only paid $444.
The 20-cent Pick 6 paid $1,583.88 on Saturday while the pick 5 only paid $136 so another chance at stringing some easy winners together that ended up paying out well. We will say the 1st leg of the pick 6 went to 13-1 Rousing Rubble with Clayan Millwood but that is a huge jump from the pick 5 pay-out to the pick 6.
Friday also saw big pay-outs of $9,939.16 for the 20-cent Jackpot Pick 6 as a single ticket took the whole pot. This was more difficult as the pick 5 also paid well $2,063.55.
Win-Place-Show
It was a decent week for the traditional wagers as well. Overall the averages weren’t eye-popping as there were some massive favorites winning as well and of course the shorter fields kill the place and show pay-outs. Overall for the weekend the $2 wins did pay well at 4-1 with an average pay of $10.48. Sunday was the best day with 2 pay-outs over $20 and 5 that were 9-2 or above. The high $2 win pay was on Saturday of $28.60. Overall there were 4 races paying more than $20 and 10 that paid $11.80 or more up to $28.60, that’s 42% of the races last week.
The Place pay-outs averaged $4.67 or 6-5. There were 2 $13.00 place returns and 12 over the weekend that paid $6 or more. The Show pays averaged 1-2 at $3.11. The high show pay was $6.20 on Saturday. There were 11 pays of $4 or more.
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